Blog links, Nov. 2004

That all having been said, for several months now I've been in the habit of regularly logging the interesting links I find around the Web. Y'know ... weblogging.

Why? Basically for my own convenience -- in much the same way I used to collect good quotes in the quotebook I still carry around and be able to dig them up again with a few flips of a page, it can be tremendously useful having those links you've been reading and finding interesting just a few clicks away. Trying to remember just where it was you read someone cracking a dark joke about Iraq resembling a game of Quake? *clickclickclick* Ah! Jesse at Pandagon.

Now that MT's working again, since they're just sitting around anyway, I figured I would share the cream of the crop with y'all. I may even do this regularly if the urge strikes.

These are just the ones which I found especially worthy of note -- about 10 percent of my list of several links per day. And they're more or less pasted in straight from my linkfile -- this is how I write the notes to myself to summarize the page's content.

GENERAL

** Best. Camera. Ever: The Gigapxl
http://www.gigapxl.org/gallery-1.htm

* Hack your way out of writer's block
http://www.43folders.com/2004/11/hack_your_way_o_1.html

* How to fix breathlessness in 15 seconds:
http://www.ftrain.com/lungvacuuming.html

* Add polish to writing - Ten ubiquitous mistakes to correct during editing process.
(Some seem like pet peeves or nitpicks, but there's good advice too.)
http://www.holtuncensored.com/ten_mistakes.html

* Why are porn movies legal when prostitution isn't and they're both paying for sex?
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001080.html

POLITICAL

** Electoral maps of the U.S. in purple, not winner-take-all red/blue:
STATEWISE
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/03/purple_haze.html
COUNTY BY COUNTY
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/
Collection of all the election results maps (and humor maps)
http://www.bopnews.com/archives/002317.html#2317
... And the map of Civil War slave vs. free states:
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog10/maps/

* Wonderfully insightful dKos diary on terrorist strategy - radicalize sides; their first opponents are the people willing to compromise.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/10/01247/557

* "Abandoning Libertarianism" - great essay on many of the same gripes I've got
http://homepage.mac.com/bbaugh/iblog/C289001406/E563561457/index.html

* Puritanism -- "the religion of the new commercial classes" in 1600s -- is becoming the model for GW Bush's American religious revival:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/09/religion-of-the-rich/

* Abraham Lincoln was a badass - he really did stand up to the South:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/25/121323/39

* Discussing the Bible with fundamentalists - steer the argument to whether it is
foundational rather than authoritative; little else will get you anywhere.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/21/195254/65

* Omnibus spending bill quietly added permanent user fees for public land (!):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/23/132457/57

You may get the same enjoyment out of them that I did. I hope at least one or two will prove useful. No warranty expressed or implied, etc.

We hope you have enjoyed this interlude of actual blogging, and now return you to your regularly scheduled journal.

QotD

"I've never read Wheel of Time ... I refuse to read any series of books that outweighs me and still isn't finished."

-- "Mr. Skullhead," in the Kingdom of Loathing forums

Today's moment of Zen

eBay yanks ad for used Schwarzenegger cough drop:

A cough drop the governor reputedly sucked on, then tossed half-finished into a trash can, was put up for auction on eBay, listed under the heading "Schwarzenegger's DNA."

It was just as quickly taken down after eBay decided it fell into the category of "body parts," which the Web site will not list for sale.

An eBay spokesman said the seller, identified only as "AMF814," could put the cough drop back up for sale if he or she reclassified it as a collectible.

... Unfortunately, before that could occur, John and Sarah Connor broke into AMF814's house and destroyed the artifact with plastic explosives, accompanied by a suspiciously buff robot sucking on a lozenge of unknown origin.

Today's moment of Zen

I'm aware I've basically posted nothing of substance since the changeover. Blame work and politics, in that order. In the meantime, here's your weird news for the day, fresh off the wire ...:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor Sylvester Stallone sued Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and a production company, claiming they stymied his efforts to make a sequel and Broadway musical based on the "Rocky" film franchise.
The suit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages against the studio and the production company. ...
Janet Janjigian, MGM's senior vice president of corporate communications, called it "sad, desperate, pathetic and without merit."

Today's moment of Zen

From a 1989 training manual. Amazing the things newspaper reporters can get their hands on.

Today's moment of Zen

Secretary of State Colin Powell winning hearts and minds in Bulgaria:

"Gimme all the money in your wallet and 2,000 additional peacekeeping troops in Iraq."

(photo via Associated Press)

fr1st p0st

S3cond p0st, actually. I'm just trying to seed the database a little so I can work out some of the style sheet kinks.

No content here. Move along.